Ask HN: How can I continue working as long as possible?

I know these responses might be a bit different than the question you are asking, but they lead back to the deeper question about lifestyle &#x2F; finances &#x2F;longevity.<p>Marry wisely. One of the biggest financial hits I took was a very costly divorce.<p>Don&#x27;t be afraid to move to lower cost areas. Maybe not today, but realize that you might need to at different points in life in order to maximize your savings.<p>Realize that you might need to find a career niche or even a different career that value your age and experience. I did this and it&#x27;s working well.<p>Take good care of your body and mind so that you can continue to work.<p>Live modestly. This isn&#x27;t about whether you drink Starbucks every morning, but rather whether you use your money overall in the smartest way possible. If you live modestly, you can live on less, which means if you get to a point where you need to make career compromises you are in a position to do that.<p>If you are in tech, consider going to work at blue chip firm that makes its money in tech. You&#x27;ll have variety in your career and it is likely they will still be in business 10, 20, 30 years from now, ie: if part of your desire to work a long time also revolves around stability and the likelihood you won&#x27;t lose your job in a merger, etc at an age where it would be hard to find a new job.

I am one of the people who never wants to retire even though I could have over a decade ago when I sold my first bigger company. At that time I tried retiring and found it terrible; I have tons of hobbies, a family and such but there are drivers in work (and more so in starting companies and growing them) that I cannot replicate. Or at least have not found a way to.<p>For me the most important is to keep starting new things and learning new very hard things (for me) and trying to apply them in business(es). The rest, at least to me, is rather obvious; stay healthy and don&#x27;t overwork or work with toxic people. I made all those mistakes.<p>Another one is: learn to manage. If if you are a coder, your eyesight will weaken, you might get all kinds of physical issues even though fit; as a manager, even on a small scale, you can last much longer with those problems.<p>Build networks; you do not want to do job interviews at 60 if needed. Your network has to be solid enough to ask for a job and get one without any vetting. That is an advantage of getting older: this is very possible if you keep up this network.<p>But, rolling back to your post: why can you not retire? Thought about moving somewhere were this is not a problem? Because if you don&#x27;t enjoy your work, it makes it vastly harder to keep it up.

I don’t think this is very complicated.<p>Drink water, eat healthy, exercise regularly, get enough sleep, have an active romantic and social life.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;starterpacks&#x2F;comments&#x2F;6wszws&#x2F;why_do_i_feel_so_good_all_the_time_starterpack&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;starterpacks&#x2F;comments&#x2F;6wszws&#x2F;why_do...</a><p>It sounds like you have career and budgeting down.

I&#x27;m 75 and I am a software developer. Keep calm and soldier on.

Building your own business.<p>Generally, applying for jobs is a young person&#x27;s game. As one gets older, a lot of the opportunities come through the network you&#x27;ve built, so investing in building a network is an absolute must.<p>But at some point, even the concept of &quot;having a job&quot; gets precarious. So investing early in building the skills to generate your income independently of an employer is super worthwhile for career longevity. It&#x27;s harder to master than yet another framework, but will do more to guarantee your income.<p>A big part of building this skill is figuring out a market you can serve, and the needs of that market. It&#x27;s more likely to be an existing product or service, but over time one builds their own unique take on it, so that over time one becomes the <i>best</i> at servicing a particular type of client. This, coupled with ongoing investments in networking, is the closest thing one can get to &quot;job security&quot; in modern labor markets.

Be open to management as well as keeping the tech skills.<p>The management - and more broadly people skills - are acquired just like tech skills are, and just like tech skills some learn them faster or slower than others. Just like tech skills these are valued to companies.<p>But one needs to mix, I think. So people management skills + tech == tech manager. Sales + tech = well, sales, or pre-sales. Or consulting if it&#x27;s more tech than sales. Design &#x2F; project management skills + tech == product manager. If you&#x27;re an absolute SME, then you can be a tech lead, an architect, and so forth, but you really need to stand out.<p>The above are purely my career observations, and are subject to disagreement on semantics, the spirit or the letter of what I&#x27;m saying, and such. I don&#x27;t claim absolute truth.<p>My other observation, though: people in their 20&#x27;s have hotter skills than people with white hair who had to re-tool their skillset. And re-tooling every few years <i>sucks</i> in my opinion. Again, my opinion. I hate working on personal tech projects or studying on the side outside of work just to keep my head above water.<p>I&#x27;d rather go hiking, or to the bar.

I have been programming for 54 years. My best work was done in my forties. Push hard for a senior well paid position now. If you’re good, you will be worth it.<p>I have never stopped programming. Even now my work is exceptional although I don’t think I could get a job.<p>Keep at it. Develop non-programming deep domain knowledge. That can be a asset getting interviews When people think you’re too old.

Read the book “How Not To Die”. It will tell you everything you need to know about staying healthy and functioning for as long as possible. 100% based on research not wishful thinking or myths.

Look at the systems that are embedded into big organizations, and start learning them. There were stories recently about &quot;bank python&quot;, so getting a good grasp of say the build process of a couple versions of the python build system and learning to make your own highly customized versions of python interpreters is likely to be a saleable skill for some while yet. The next COBOL might be python 2.x<p>Generally &quot;stay willing to learn new things&quot; seems like decent advice no matter what you&#x27;re doing.

Here&#x27;s my list<p><pre><code> * Ergo keyboard * Learn keyboard shortcuts * Learn to use a mouse with both hands * Take hourly breaks * Ask why things need to be done rather than jumping into them. There might be a better way. * Rest your eyes (look at long distances periodically) * Stay curious * Connect to people on LinkedIn * Consider consulting (you can often moonlight to try it out) </code></pre> HTH

Keep in mind that you may be healthy today but that literally can change in a single day. This brings so many problems when it comes to working

The eye strain is doing me in. I thought I would be working longer but that decision is made.

Ergonomics (meaning, learn how to do your work comfortably without interruptions).<p>Management skills (meaning, managing others). It might not be your cup of tea, but not having them after a certain point devalues you.<p>Hobbies.<p>Being proactive in learning new techs you actually like.

Some great advice here.<p>I would underline that in (a reasonably successful) life one progresses from <i>doing</i> to <i>owning</i>. Ownership can be of skills and knowledge, of a network of friends and acquaintances, or simply a place to live. The <i>doing</i> (and doing the doing <i>well</i>) contributes to the <i>owning</i>, such that eventually when you can&#x27;t actually do much anymore, you are still valuable to society.<p>Of course this all falls apart when the world changes under our feet, and the things we own become worthless!

The best way to work until you want to without being forced to retire is: 1. Focus on your health. 2. Find your passion 3. Work on your relationships, both personal and business. 4. Be ready to transition to a different role&#x2F;career. You are unlikely to keep doing the same thing forever. You need to plan to move to something else. 5. Be your own boss, don&#x27;t count on someone else to keep you employed.

Beyond the obvious stuff like ongoing learning of new tech, and doing your best to stay healthy:<p>I’d focus on building a diverse age range in your professional network. You need younger people in your network to stay aware of technical and cultural changes, and you need older people in your network to better understand the challenges you’ll face later on.

Personally I am investing 20K+ in a lifetime subscription of Elysium Basis&#x2F;Matter. Also consider the bioengineering impact of apps given input of something like full genomic sequencing. Might be able to tell you about important things like how you respond to certain kinds of food, propensity for certain types of illness, etc.

If you have any interest in defense: it can be tricky to get your foot in the door because you need someone to sponsor you for a clearance, but if you get TS&#x2F;SCI, you&#x27;ll have engineering work forever

Options: 1) be good at what you do, but keep up with tech trends. Tech can fall away. 2) start your own business. Not trivial, but an option. Keep up with tech trends. 3) get a government job.

&gt; it seems unlikely that I will ever be able to afford a comfortable retirement despite my efforts to save.<p>You aren&#x27;t doing it right then.<p>Switch to a mostly stock-based compensation. Capital gain is much better than employment income.